Archives for April, 2006

Janet has a post up on communications between students and faculty. My opinion — as both a student who must communicate with faculty members and a teaching assistant with whom students must communicate — is that it’s most important to be clear, concise, respectful, and polite. You should always observe proper punctuation, grammar, and spelling…

It’s not the best way to kick of a new blog theme — on Friday night with a half-hearted entry — but I promised last week that I would begin Phylogeny Fridays today, so I need to deliver. For the first ever Phylogeny Friday, we have the greatest phylogeny of them all, the Tree of…

Nature has a news article on the resignation of Teri Markow from her position as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution. I don’t know much about what happened other than the stuff in the Nature piece, but apparently Markow was frustrated by the treatment of women within the administrative ranks of scientific…

The evolution of John McCain: It was not random. It’s further evidence of natural selection. The new form is more fit at tricking voters. But keep in mind, natural selection favors the phenotypes best adapted for a previous environment. This means McCain may actually be less fit in 2008.

Read this article. It deals with scientific literacy, politics, and religion in the United States, focusing on stem cells and evolution. Here’s a taste: To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if “human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals” since 1985. He and…

I can’t draw very well. That’s actually an overstatement. I’m a shitty drawer. To say I ain’t no Carl Buell would be an insult to Carl Buell and his artistic brethren. I’m worse than the dude who draws toothpaste for dinner. I wouldn’t know art if jumped up and bit me in the face. Find…

From the London Times: In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of “anti-Genesis” described as “a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family”. He will pray for society to be cleansed of the “filth” that surrounds…

After a short, and dirty, run, the evolgen Double Entendre Friday has shuffled off its mortal coil. I just can’t keep it up week after week (double entendre not intended). Of course, if I do come across something particular distasteful with a dash of sexual innuendo I’ll include it in the list of double entendres.…

William Harris came to my university to perpetuate misconceptions last September. I intended to write a summary of the experience, but I could never muster enough anti-venom to deal with his poison. In lieu of a formal treatment of Harris’s bullshit, I’ve decided to (quite tardily) present a short description of what makes a discipline…